Israel bombed Gaza for a third day Monday in an "all-out war" on Hamas, as tanks massed on the border and the Islamists fired deadly rockets in retaliation for the blitz that has killed at least 318 people.

Anger over the mammoth bombing campaign spiralled in the Muslim world , UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon again deplored the violence, and efforts to hold talks between Syria and Israel were suspended as a result of the bombardment.

With Israeli tanks idling along the border of the battered Palestinian enclave , the army declared the area a closed military zone -- a move that in the past has often been followed by ground operations.

Defence Minister Ehud Barak, who has warned of a possible ground offensive, declared that the Jewish state was in "an all-out war with Hamas and its proxies".

"We will avoid as much as possible hitting civilians while the people of Hamas and other terrorists deliberately hide and operate within the civilian population," he told a parliamentary session.

Notice, that the first sentence says that “Islamists” (not Hamas) fired deadly rockets in realiation for the Isareli attack.
You don’t get to the fact that the Israeli attacks are in response to continued rocket attacks from Hamas until the 8th sentence.

I was particularly struck by the following sentence:

Hamas, which is branded a terror group by Israel and the West, has lashed out at the world for not doing enough to end the blitz”

If Hamas wants the blitz stopped all they have to do is promise (and follow through) that there will be no more suicide bombings and no more rocket attacks from Gaza. They were warned for months that the rocket attacks would spark a retaliation. Now they are upset that it has sparked a retaliation.

I recall a famous saying that if you find yourself in a hole, the first thing you want to do is stop digging. Hamas dug this hole by attacking Israel (more or less daily over many months). While Palestinian sympathizers scream at Israel after their patience finally snapped and they have begun to strike back at those who have been waging relentless war on them, they ignore who started it. And of course Hamas is continuing to fire rockets and mortars into Israel.

Israel has without doubt done some things in the past deserving of sharp criticism. This time though, they are acting in the right. As long as Hamas continues to attack them; Israel has every right to fire back.

Not to mention that Hamas hides its rocket launchers among civilians - so any attempt to take out the rocket launchers has a high possibility of resulting in civilian casualties.

The deaths of the civilians in this exchange are 100% on Hamas. According to all moral reasoning, civilian deaths that occur because you are hiding military weapons among civilians are the responsibility of the person doing the hiding.

If Hamas had any courage or honor it would attempt to fight Isarel force on force. Of course it has neither and must respond with cowardly attacks based in civilian areas and hope that anti-semitism will shield them from an armed response by Israel.

I agree 100% that Hamas is to blame - it refused to extend the cease fire and for months, has sat back and done nothing to prevent rocket attacks against Israelis. (It is unclear if Hamas actually authored the attacks.) Still - people are being killed and lives are in jeopardy. Pray that a way would be found to end the bloodshed and give Israelis the security to which they are entitled.